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       To a great extent, we owe our current high standard of living to biological advances in food production. Plant and animal breeders have developed organisms that provide better sources of food than the original varieties. Corn is a grass that produces its seeds on a cob. The original corn plant had very small ears that were perhaps only three or four centimeters long. Through selective breeding, varieties of corn with much larger ears and more seeds per cob plant have been adapted to produce other kinds of corn, such as sweet corn and popcorn.

        Animal breeders also have had much success. The pig, chicken, and cow of today are much different animals from those available even 100 years ago. Chickens lay more eggs, dairy cows give more milk, and beef cattle grow faster. All of these improvements raise our standard of living. One interesting example is the change in the kind of hogs that are raised. At one time, farmers wanted pigs that were fatty. The fat could be made into lard, soap, and various other products. As the demand for fat products of pigs declined, animal breeders developed pigs that gave a high yield of meat and relatively little fat. Today, plant and animal breeders can produce plants and animals almost to specifications.

Many are the journalists who dream about reporting on the world’s deadliest scenes of strife. Few are the ones who actually do it. Even fewer are those who do it well. Camille Lepage, a young photographer from France who was educated in the U.K. but 41 work took her far from Europe, was among the latter. Last fall, Lepage ventured into the Central Africa Republic, where a coup staged by mainly Muslim rebels had crumpled the state and prompted largely Christian militias to retaliate with fury. She spent her time 42 the fighters and also those most affected by the turmoil, while learning all she could about its roots. William Daniels, a photographer who worked with her here, 43 that locals respected her commitment and professionalism. “She was very active, very patient, very passionate about this work,” he says. “Very brave.” On May 13 the office of French President Francois Hollande issued a statement 44 Lepage’s death, at the age of 26, which it described as murder. French peacekeeping troops had discovered her body after they stopped a car driven by antibalaka militiamen. On a recent trip to New York City, Lepage admitted to fears about the conflict she was covering but said that she did not seek out scenes of violence on purpose. 45 , she wanted, in a way typical of her, to find the humanity in that bleak situation. The pictures she made in her brief life will define how she will be remembered, but the pictures she was going to take will help form her legacy.

   In a city where eating well is an obsession, a statement by a senior official published in a national newspaper caused a public outcry. Vallop Suwandee, who chairs an advisory board to the governor of Bangkok, was quoted as saying that street vendors would be removed from all 50 districts of the city. It seemed that one of the most popular and distinctive aspects of Bangkok life was to be wiped out, days after CNN had voted Bangkok the best place in the world for street food, and just two months before the city government was planning to hold a street-food festival.

   Mr. Vallop now says he was misquoted: “Let me be clear, on behalf of the city of Bangkok. Street food will continue to be part of Bangkok life, on the condition that there will not be obstructions for pedestrians, and that the vendors observe sanitary rules in the interest of public health. We will allow them to be in certain areas, under strict conditions.”

   This is not the first time the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA), which is responsible for running the city, has tried to impose order and standards on the hundreds of thousands of food vendors operating on the streets. Right after the BMA was first established in 1972, it launched a similar campaign to force the vendors to operate in designated markets instead.

   Variations of that campaign were revived every few years but implementation has always been weak because the BMA recognised the vital role street vending played in providing a source of income in difficult economic times. Most of the time it has quietly chosen not to push too hard.

   This time may be different. The number of officially approved locations for street food vendors has been cut dramatically, from a peak of 726 four years ago to 243 by the end of last year. Tens of thousands of vendors have been forced to move already, leaving many downtown areas like Siam Square, Asok and Silom with few or no street-food stalls now visible during the day and night.

   The most recent area to be cleared is the increasingly wealthy neighbourhood of Thonglor. A small side street, or soi, which for many years had been famous for its street food, is no more, although city officials say the vendors were offered alternative locations in smaller sois further away.